and racial harassment?’
‘Yes. Terrible,’ said Israel.
‘Would you mind?’ said Ron. ‘With Linda?’
‘Erm.’
‘Sexual and racial harassment with Linda?’ said Ted, mostly to himself.
‘Yes,’ said Ron.
‘Sure,’ said Israel.
‘What’s that on your T-shirt?’ said Eileen. ‘“Smack My Bitch Up”?’
‘Yeesss,’ said Israel. ‘It’s just a phrase.’
There was a lot of other stuff: stuff about budgets; and footfalls; and deadlines for this, and deadlines for that; and Israel soon lost interest and pretty soon after that he also lost the will to live. While Linda was speaking about rolling out wi-fi connections across the county, Israel sat staring down at the thinly veneered pale wood surface of the table around which they were all sitting, like miniaturised modern-day medieval knights discussing their forthcoming crusade against the Infidel, or Mafia bosses running a failing cold-storage and meat-packing plant, and for a moment he imagined that they were a parachute display team and that the table was in fact nothing but a big inverted bag of air held by a gathering of cords and they were all about to drop down thousands of feet, out of the blue sky, down to earth…Which, indeed, promptly they did.
‘Mr Armstrong?’ Linda was saying. ‘Hello? Mr Armstrong? Earth calling Armstrong? Excuse us?’
He was doodling. His agenda looked like a greyscale photocopy of an early Jackson Pollock, pre-Full Fathom Five. At the last Mobile Library Steering Committee meeting Linda had proposed a motion banning all doodling, claiming that it was an act of passive aggression, perpetrated almost wholly by males, but the motion was voted down—Ron was a secret doodler, as were Chi-Chi and Chang-Chang. Linda had also been pressing for a Mobile Library Steering Committee team-building weekend away—with orienteering, and white-water rafting, and abseiling—which absolutely nobody else at all thought was a good idea. No one wanted bonding; quite the opposite. She’d also been pressuring Ted and Israel to sign up for a ‘PR and Power Presentation Skills’ course running over in Derry; they had, so far, successfully resisted.
She was basically completely crazy, Linda, as far as Israel could tell, and she’d got even crazier since splitting up with her husband and coming out as a lesbian, which made her Tumdrum’s only Chinese Catholic lesbian single parent, as far as Israel was aware, and as much as he disliked Linda—and he really disliked her a lot—you had to respect her for that. There’d been a leaving-do recently for a retiring librarian down in Rathkeltair, and they’d all gone out to a Chinese restaurant which had a karaoke, and once everyone had done their ‘Country Road’s and ‘Imagine’s and ‘A Whiter Shade of Pale’s, Linda insisted on getting up, Baileys in hand, and singing—unaccompanied, because there was no backing track—an old music-hall song, ‘Nobody Loves A Fairy When She’s Forty’, encoring with ‘Two Lovely Black Eyes’ and ‘The Man Who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo’.
Really, you couldn’t help but like Linda.
‘Armstrong!’ Linda was saying. ‘Pay attention!’
At least, you couldn’t help but like her in theory.
As always, the major issue facing the Mobile Library Steering Committee had been tucked away deep into the agenda.
‘So, gentlemen. Now the good news.’
‘Item 9,’ said Eileen.
Ted looked at Item 9.
‘Oh, my God,’ said Israel. ‘Ted?’
‘What?’ said Ted.
‘Oh. My. God!’
‘What?’
‘Item 9.’
‘What about it?’
‘Look at it.’
Ted peered at the agenda. ‘Aye.’
Israel read it out: ‘“Replacement of mobile learning centre vehicle.”’
‘What?’ said Ted.
‘Your van, gentlemen,’ said Linda, with some pride, ‘is going to be replaced.’
‘What?’ repeated Ted.
‘The van, Mr Carson, we’ve found the money through some Lottery funding and a new development grant.’
‘No way!’ said Israel.
‘Way,’ said Linda.
‘We can’t get rid of the van,’ said Ted. ‘There’s nothing wrong with the van.’
‘Now, now, Mr Carson,’ said Linda.
‘That van is perfect,’ said Ted.
‘Except for the steering,’ said Israel.
‘It’s a wee bit sloppy, just,’ said Ted.
‘Corrosion in the engine,’ added Israel.
‘Well? New engine,’ said Ted.
‘Clutch,’ said Israel.
‘Needs replacing just.’
‘Brakes.’
‘Yes, yes, we get the picture, thank you, gentlemen,’ said Linda. ‘Well, Mr Carson?’
Ted was silent.
‘When do we get the new one then?’ said Israel. ‘What’s it going to be like? What colour is it going to be?’
‘Well, actually, gentlemen,’ said Linda, with a further flourish, ‘we would like you to go and choose.’
‘What?’ said Israel. ‘You are joking!’
‘No. We are not joking, Mr Armstrong. We’re sending you to the Mobile Meet, so you can meet up with some of the manufacturers and—’
‘The what?’
‘The Mobile Meet,’ said Linda, ‘is organised by the Chartered Institute of Information and Library Professionals. It’s an annual event where mobile librarians can meet and swap experiences and discuss the latest technology. It’s a prestige event.’
‘Right,’ said Israel.
‘It’s in England,’ said Linda.
‘No!’ said Israel.
‘Yes,’ said Linda.
‘You’re joking!’
‘No. We are not joking. Again,’ said Linda.
‘That’s fantastic! You’re
